Heart Goes Last

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
308 Pages

"Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around--and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes. At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled."

 As a whole I found this to be an odd novel.  I never got the sense of desperation implied in the description and instead found the end chapters to be almost comedic. 

Shades of Grey

Shades Of Grey by Jasper Fforde              390 pages

Eddie and his father have been sent to the Outer Fringes.  Eddie is going because he has bent some rules and his prefect has decided he needs some humility.  He is to conduct a chair census.  His father is going because a colleague has been called away and has asked him to cover the village while he is gone.  Eddie and his father are Russets, on the Red color spectrum, so not very high up in the social hierarchy, but certainly better off than the Greys.  Once they arrive in East Carmine, they find that not everything is as it seemed.  Mr. Russet’s colleague is dead, and Eddie has met Jane, a Grey, who is telling him unbelievable thing about the entire color hierarchy and system of government.  Jane doesn’t follow any of the rules, while Eddie has always tried to follow most of the rules but the more he sees and hears in East Carmine, the more he wonders how much Jane has right.  A really bizarre, interesting read from Fforde, very typical of his work.  Anyone who has enjoyed his other books will probably like this series also.  The books would best be described as fantasy, but only people who enjoy the bizarre side of fantasy will like Jasper Fforde.